A Weekend of Contemplation

The “visitors” were at the compound for roughly fourteen hours this weekend. They arrived on Saturday, around 6 PM, and left the next day at 8 AM. They basically used our place as a bunkhouse, between Canada and their new/old home in North Carolina.

But they’ll be returning next weekend, for a longer stay. So, don’t touch that dial. I’ll have a full report, once all the data has been collected.

On Saturday night I went to bed at 10 PM. I was exhausted for some reason, and couldn’t take anymore slurping, smacking, wide-open coughing, booger-eating, wiener-flicking, or highbrow pontification. So, I told everyone goodnight, and climbed atop the platform.

And I awoke at 1:20 AM to absolute darkness. We always leave a lamp turned on in the living room, in case someone needs to get up in the middle of the night. You know, so they don’t go cascading down the stairs, and blow a hole in their neck. But Nossy (he’s always the last to bed), turned EVERYTHING off. Including our porch light.

I’m not exaggerating, my heart started racing because I thought I’d gone blind. There were no shadows, or the slightest variation in blackness levels. It was just solid dark, in every direction. It takes a while for the brain (especially my brain) to process what’s going on, and for a few terrifying seconds I thought I’d lost my sight.

But then I saw the numbers on Toney’s clock radio, and finally allowed myself to exhale.

I laid there wondering why someone would turn out every single light in their house, before going to bed. Is that common? Shouldn’t there be at least a nominal amount of illumination, for safety’s sake? I think I drifted off to sleep again agitated and mildly pissed at the whole advanced darkness situation. Dumbassery!

The oldest Secret had a birthday over the weekend, and got a new iPod Touch out of the deal. Which, I might add, is pretty darn cool… I’ve gotta have one, myself.

We also allowed him to pick a restaurant for dinner, and he said he wanted crab legs from Ret Lopster. Eninen were hinting that they wanted to join us, but they’re so completely unreliable, Toney told them no. If we’d waited on them, they might not have arrived until 10 PM and ruined the whole thing. ‘Cause that’s the way they roll.

Again, I ordered the New York strip steak. I’m not really a seafood kind of guy… But I’m telling you, every steak I’ve ever eaten at that megacorporation chain restaurant has been incredibly good. I don’t know what they do to them, or if it’s just superior cuts of meat. But they’re always excellent.

Toney and I also ordered Sam Adams drafts with dinner. But they didn’t serve us Sam Adams, they brought Blue Moon. Some people might not be able to tell the difference, but I can.

I thought about telling the waitress about it, but she seemed exceedingly timid and fragile. So I let it go. Blue Moon isn’t the worst beer in the world; I could live with it. I guess.

But after I finished my steak, and saw that almost an entire crustacean was still to be dismantled to my left, I called our server over and ordered another round of beers. “Sam Adams,” I enunciated. “We’d like two… Sam Adams.”

And she brought Blue Moon again! What the hell, man?? Were the kegs mixed up, or something?

I sat there and thought about it, and imagined the bartender discovering the problem later in the evening. And I saw him telling a co-worker (inside my head) that nobody had even noticed, that these pretentious assholes come in here ordering their fancy-pants beers, and don’t even know the difference. I imagined him laughing, and mocking me.

So I told our waitress about it, and she almost had a nervous breakdown. I should’ve just gone with the Blue Moon, and let the chips fall where they may. This girl was so apologetic and shattered, it made me feel horrible. I thought she was going to curl up in a ball on the floor.

Sheesh.

After we left the restaurant, I noticed this shed behind the McDonald’s across the street. I wondered what was inside, and all four of us offered guesses while driving home. The Secrets’ ideas were predictably gory and disturbing. One of them said it was probably full of corpses: dead people who’d eaten tainted hamburger, or whatever.

And that’s today’s Question: what do you think McDonald’s keeps in the sheds behind their restaurants? Any ideas? Use the comments to tell us about it.

Also, here are a few more Smoking Fish sightings, all very cool indeed. And this is a link to today’s mockable update, about pocket celebrities.

Your story of waking up in total blackness reminded me of one time at WVU. I used to drink to blackout stage and have woken up in some strange places, mostly on somebody’s front lawn or floor somewhere, but one time I woke, still fairly drunk, in a total pitch black room. I mean nothing. I determined I was on a cot or something and then felt the wall and started to find a light switch or door. Being in that state my brain was having trouble with the higher functions and it felt I was in some sort of dream world. I failed numerous times to find anything but four solid walls, except one tiny closet with empty coat hangers in them. There was also no furniture in the room except the cot. I was picturing myself locked in some freak’s prison cell where I was to be methodically murdered. I believe I laid there for awhile, passed back out, the next time I tried, I found the door and light easily. I was in my buddy’s empty bedroom in a basement apt. with no windows that my friends had thrown me into. What a freakin’ relief. I must have still been thoroughly pissed during my nightmare and can still picture myself groping like a zombie for escape. Good times! I think I didn’t drink again for another 4 or 5 days.

Funny you should mention the nightlight situation Jeff. Our upstairs hallway has no outlets for nightlights and I regularly go ass-over-tits down the stairs. Just this weekend, in fact. This time I ended up in the kitchen upside down against the fridge. Nothing like gravity-induced stair cartwheels at 6 in the morning to get the ol’ blood moving.

Hahaha, someone mentioned Government Cheese. I had a college roommate in the early part of the previous decade who was a DJ at the campus radio station. Of course, college radio = unique music. One of his favorite songs to play was “Camping on Acid” by Government Cheese. I only remember one line from that song, and it went like this:

Mate, I can’t bear ANY light being around when I go to bed. I have to have complete darkness. I can’t bear curtains (sorry, drapes!) so have blinds in every room but the ones in the bedroom are white blackout ones so they don’t diffuse the orange glow from the street lamp outside. There’s enough ambient light where I live at night to navigate the short (and straight ahead) route to the pan without incident (save the odd sleeping cat), so I’ve got no problem arriving at my intended destination.

Unfortunately, my ex-girlfriend wasn’t so lucky, and being a raging alcoholic got disorientated one night on her way to the toilet. Somehow she forgot that she hadn’t actually walked along the landing yet, and in a drunken haze she did what she needed to do in the bedroom, by the door. I was awoken to the sound of liquid splattering onto the carpet, and as I opened my eyes to see what it was her silhouette, squatting, mid-air, greeted me. For some reason, I leapt up, picked her up (she was only small, I’m 6’3) and she remained rigid, like some mannequin. I ran down the landing, with a rigid alcoholic, still in the squatting position in my arms, but positioned on her side, piss flying out in all directions and clamped her to the seat. Clean up the next day was a lengthy process. I should have left her where she was.

How I wandered onto that vile subject, I’ll never know – My apologies, but it’s early and I’ve had no caffeine. These days, I live alone, and can enjoy the blackness of the bedroom.